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He shut it down with a sigh.

Droma stood staring at him. “Hurts to watch you,” he said.

“Because you know what I’m going through, I suppose,” Jacen answered. “If I use it, I’m miserable. If I don’t, I’m sunk.”

The Ryn nodded, then stepped out over the tattered remains of the dome. “Come on, kid. Move.”

Jacen processed through decontamination the next afternoon and reported to the admin building. According to Leia’s aide, Jaina was outdoors in Gateway’s ship lot, helping an inspection team. Leia sat at the big SELCORE desk, ignoring an undertone of conversation between C-3PO and someone on the other end of a comlink—something about spiro grass, marshlands, and weather modification.

Leia straightened her white head wrap. “I’m glad you’re here, Jacen. A CorDuro freighter we just offloaded is missing a third of its cargo. Think you could get anywhere with CorDuro’s administration?”

Jacen gaped. “I haven’t got much experience with negotiating.”

Leia shook her head. “No, but you’re a Solo, and that ought to impress them. I haven’t got time to fly up to Bburru, and your dad says you’re trying to get more involved in non-Jedi activities. I can sympathize with that.” Her left cheek twitched. “More than you know.”

“I guess you probably can,” Jacen admitted. His mom would understand that not everyone who showed Jedi talent was destined to follow that path. She’d shown him that not every life had enough time for Jedi disciplines.

He’d tried to tell his dad about his vision, and how it confirmed his decision to hold back. Han had turned away, shaking his head, confused.

“Want to try something new?” Leia asked.

Jacen ran a hand over his strangely smooth head. “Droma just brought Thirty-two’s Howlrunner over. I could take it up to Bburru, see what I can do.”

“I’d appreciate that. Be careful, Jacen.”

“Always, Mom.”

“May the Force be with you—anyway.”

“You, too.”

Randa Besadii Diori propelled himself up Gateway’s main street, relieved to put the admin building—with its rough, dry detention cell and glaring lights—behind him. He’d tried to explain to Jedi Jaina Solo that he only wanted to evaluate Gateway’s ships, but she was as self-righteous as her brother.

So far, he’d evaded their mother.

He passed a pair of shaved-down Ryn, standing outside their tent wearing snug blue flight suits. Their vests and culottes hung limp over lumpy blue leggings.

Even after he’d served his detention—which he had every intention of protesting, after the fact—he had been temporarily excluded from the communication area, the one place where he finally could hope for decent transmission equipment! He must contact Borga. He would find a way to get off this drab, impoverished world and rejoin her.

He wet his lips. He needed a pilot, of course. He still might convince the young Solo female. As his people said, Where persuasion fails, bribery prevails. His kajidic had wealth on worlds the Yuuzhan Vong hadn’t touched. The young Jedi must have a weakness—jewels, shimmersilk—better yet, a ship of her own.

Encouraged by his thoughts, he hurried up the sandy lane to the SELCORE shelter he’d been issued, a miserable blue tent in Gateway’s Tayana ruins district. He could hear the continual grinding of Gateway’s rock chewers underfoot.

Pausing inside his door flap, he caught an odd odor. He clenched his little hands, furious at the intrusion. He snuffled, following the scent to his sleeping mat. He had used his flimsy bedcovers as additional padding. Beneath them, he spotted an unfamiliar lump.

Reaching around with his tail, he flicked off the covers.

A leathery ball—not quite the size and shape of a human head—lay on the sleeping mat.

It was a Yuuzhan Vong villip, like the ones he’d seen on board the clustership. Borga had come through for him quickly.

Then he trembled from head to tail tip. Too quickly, actually. For this villip to show up in his dwelling so soon, the Yuuzhan Vong must have an agent inside the Gateway dome, masquerading as human. An agent who now knew where